what determines your answering percentage?
From: "Alice A Walaskay" <AAWALASK at oaklandcc.edu>
To: "Virtual reference" <Virtual_reference at mail.mlcnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 6:43:10 PM
Subject: [Virtual_reference] Qwidget roll-up and our answering percentage
Hi VRers – This fall Research Help Now has been participating again in the QP qwidget roll-up. We are required to keep our Answering Percentage above 75% to stay in the roll-up. The last two weeks our AP has been 56% and 63% respectively, so I thought it would be a good time to remind you what the qwidget roll-up is all about and to encourage you to answer more questions if it is possible for you to do so (without sacrificing quality).
Qwidget roll-up – When our collaborative (RHN, or the “Michigan Academic Queue”) is a part of the roll-up, all of our patrons’ questions that come in through the qwidget are automatically “rolled-up”, or relayed to the larger 24/7 queue even if none of our collaborative members are monitoring the queue. If we are not part of the roll-up, when none of our members are monitoring a queue, our qwidget is turned off, but patrons can still ask questions using the regular chat form at www.researchhelpnow.org . All questions that come in through the regular chat form are answered 24/7.
How is the Answering Percentage figured?
We get credit for every question we answer from both Michigan and the 24/7 cooperative queues and that is compared with the number of our students’ questions. For example, if Michigan students asked 100 questions and our librarians answered 75 questions (whether they came from Michigan or other places), that would equal a 75% answering percentage. Doesn’t matter whether the questions came in on the qwidget or regular chat. The roll-up is an advantage to libraries that use the qwidget because that means qwidget questions would be relayed to other libraries after we have stopped monitoring the queues on nights and weekends.
Qwidgets have been shown to increase the use of our VR service for the libraries that use them.
How could we increase the number of questions that are answered?
There are several ways and you may want to discuss this with your library’s VR manager to decide what is appropriate for your library.
· If you are only monitoring the Michigan queue, consider answering questions from the 24/7 queue.
· Think about scheduling more hours when your library is monitoring the service.
· Pick up more questions while you are on your shift.
We are not asking you to do more than you are capable of handling, but if you can help, even with a couple more questions/week, we may be able to get up to our 75%. They are offering us a couple more weeks as a grace period.
Thanks! Ann Walaskay
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